Hong Kong's Retirement Fund
Is a Result of a Heated Debate

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong is taking a big leap. Beginning Friday, the city, a standard-bearer for laissez-faire capitalism, will require all its employees and employers to pay into a retirement fund.

The plan, five years in the making, survived opposition from business groups, lawmakers and economists. Several times it was almost abandoned, and until the very end, some participants doubted it would actually endure. That it did, in a city...